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- April 6, 2010
A Gem of the Green Movement, Emerald Cities Published Last Week
BY ESTHERIn Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development, Joan Fitzgerald, director of the Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University, showcases how some cities have taken the lead in creating policy that is mutually beneficial to both the environment and economic development. Ms. Fitzgerald spoke on this subject and introduced her book at SPUR, this past November 17th.
According to Joan Fitzgerald, it has fallen to cities around the world to embrace the challenge of sustainability, because national governments have failed to come to an agreement on a global policy. The lack of any significant outcome from the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last year serves to underscore the matter: you cannot effect environmental change without addressing the underlying issues of how that change affects disparate groups.
It is not surprising that San Francisco is one of the cities responding to the call to take these economic factors and questions of accessibility into consideration—you can read what SPUR has contributed in our report Critical Cooling: San Francisco can fight global warming through smart changes to local policy.
Fitzgerald agrees that cities are uniquely situated to make a difference due to population density and use of public transportation, to promote and benefit from green economic development in particular. She provides examples of policy from cities that have successfully addressed the interrelated environmental problems of global warming, pollution and energy dependence, with social justice, equity, and job quality in mind as well as policy from cities that have found the process more challenging. Fitzgerald provides a guide to help city and regional planners and policymakers move toward becoming “emerald cities.“ - November 10, 2009
Emerald Cities: How are Cities Advancing the Shift to a Green Economy?
BY EGON TERPLAN, REGIONAL PLANNING DIRECTOR
[Image: Green roof in Toronto from urbanneighbourhood]
How can cities best position themselves in the green economy? What is the role of manufacturing in urban areas? How can a city best choose an economic development strategy given its size and unique economic history? How should federal policy support policy innovation among cities?
Join us for an evening discussion with nationally-recognized visiting writer and professor Joan Fitzgerald. She will give us a preview of her new book, Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development, to be published by Oxford University Press in early 2010. In the book, Joan Fitzgerald shows how in the absence of a comprehensive national policy, cities have taken the lead in addressing the interrelated environmental problems of global warming, pollution, energy dependence, and social justice. Her analysis includes a comparison of 24 cities throughout the United States - major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco (of course) but also less known places such as Toledo and Syracuse.
Join us on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 6:00 pm
Where: SPUR Urban Center (654 Mission Street)
Joan Fitzgerald is a nationally-recognized writer and professor who directs the Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University. Earlier this year, Fitzgerald edited The American Prospect’s April 2009 special report on “The Green Challenge: Will Cleaner Energy Produce New Industries and Good Jobs for Americans?” The answer, says Fitzgerald and the six other contributors to that report, is Yes—provided that governments at the federal, state and local level give green manufacturing the support it needs to flourish. That means much more thanfunding specific companies; it requires crafting and implementing a comprehensive industrial policy. Such a policy, Fitzgerald writes in her piece Cities on the Front Lines, would recognize how traditional sources of manufacturing strength can serve as the base of a renewable energy economy. She cites how a former glass technology and manufacturing center like Toledo, Ohio has now become a leader in solar energy.
And last month in an op-ed for the Boston Globe, Fitzgerald warns that absent a broad and coherent industrial vision that connects demand, supply and technology, the United States is likely to cede leadership in renewable energy production and other clean technologies to German, Japan and China.
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